Grid-Tools

Introduction

Grid-Tools was founded in 2005 though, in a sense, its foundations go further back than that, since its founders had previously built up and then sold BitByBit to OuterBay (since acquired by HP). The company therefore has a depth of experience in test data management, while this also explains why it is privately owned and self-financing.

The company's motto is "data fit for purpose". However, this refers to test data rather than production data and Grid-Tools' solutions are all about, and focused on, testing. This is a significant differentiator when compared to Grid-Tools' usual competitors. For example, when it comes to test data management Grid-Tools' most vociferous rivals are all data management providers: they come at test data management from a data management perspective whereas Grid-Tools focuses on the tester.

Another generic point worth noting about Grid-Tools is that it is an advocate of agile development practices. While the company's products are not targeted specifically at agile development environments (they are equally suitable for traditional environments) Grid-Tools is very much aware of the requirements for testing in agile environments.

The company's headquarters is in the UK, while it also has offices in the United States (New York), and a team based in India (Delhi). It has an extensive partner programme with trained staff in Australasia, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and both North and South America. It also has a variety of technical partners as well as systems integrators, and its strategic partnerships include HP and Accenture.

Datamaker

Datamaker is Grid-Tools' test data management solution. Most vendors offering test data management either do so as an appendage to software suites that are primarily focused on application testing, or as an extension to archival and information lifecycle management products. Grid-Tools was the first specialist vendor to enter this space and, for a long time, was the only vendor to offer the ability to generate synthetic data as opposed to database subsetting. Many of its major competitors still do not have this ability and Grid-Tools continues to have more advanced capabilities for synthetic data than those that do offer this capability.

It should be noted that Datamaker includes a full suite of data masking capabilities for companies that wish to use the product for database subsetting rather than generate synthetic data. Indeed, Grid-Tools directly markets a data masking solution in its own right.

Datamaker integrates with other Grid-Tools products such as Agile Designer (for automating the generation of test cases) and its service virtualisation capabilities. There is a Test Data on Demand Portal that allows users to share test data and test cases. Datamaker also integrates with third party service virtualisation products as well as testing environments from CA, HP and Bender RBT, amongst others.

Grid-Tools is not fussy about who uses Datamaker and has no particular industry focus although it does, to a certain extent, focus on the Healthcare and banking sectors, where it has had some notable success. Both of these sectors are ones that are heavily regulated and where compliance requirements around the protection of personal information are paramount.

More generically, the company's main emphasis is on companies that agree with its data-driven approach and who appreciate that agile development is as much about the data, and particularly the test data, as it is about the development processes themselves. It would argue, and we would agree, that you can't have a truly agile development process without agile test data to go with it.

In addition to its own teams, the company has an extensive network of partners across the globe, with trained staff in over 18 countries worldwide. These are split between regional resellers that serve the needs of local markets, and global strategic partners, which include CA Technologies, Accenture and HP. Partners in the Americas include Orasi Software and Softworx, while Central and South America is served by Green Light Technology. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, partners include ANECON GmbH, Blue Turtle Technologies, Cast Info, INFA Partner, Infuse, Lemontree, Sothis Yazlim, Spica Solutions, WSM, MTP, Soflab Technology, and Software AG.

Grid-Tools has had some significant success in the financial sector though none of its major banking clients can be named. Projects range from establishing a new data warehouse to migrations. Government contracts and healthcare are also notable but again unnamed. The company's website provides a number of case studies though none of the named users will be familiar to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Datamaker can be licensed either as an entire suite or on a modular basis. It runs on Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM i-Series and IBM System z. Note that other products in this space do not typically support system z. There are native drivers for masking for DB2 z/OS, IMS, Oracle, SQL Server and Teradata while the Data Archive module supports DB2, MySQL (Oracle), Oracle, SQL Server and Sybase (SAP). Datamaker as a whole also supports DB2 UDB, DB2 400, Actian (Ingres), PostgreSQL, Sybase (SAP), Informix (IBM) and InterSystems Caché plus various flat file formats including Excel, VSAM/ISAM, CSV, TXT, SQL and fixed definition files. Synthetic data can be generated for HTML files but these cannot be sub-setted or masked. XML files may be created and masked but not sub-setted and this is also true for HIPAA (40-10, 50-10 and X12), EDI and SWIFT files.

Arguably, the company's major strength is that it can support all forms of test data, whether that be a copy of the original data, a subset of that data (which can be generated in various ways to ensure appropriate coverage) or by creating synthetic data that matches the profile of the original but which does not actually use any of the actual data contained within the production database. For obvious reasons, this last approach automatically resolves all data protection issues and it also means, because Datamaker stores this data in its own test data warehouse, that data can be easily and quickly re-generated at any time, without requiring any input from the DBA. As far as we know Datamaker is still the only product on the market that can do this.

This ability to generate synthetic test data explains why Datamaker is modular. If you want to use this facility then you won't need to use the product's data masking capabilities while, on the other hand, if you just want to subset data you will probably want masking (if sensitive data is involved) but not want synthetic data generation. Similarly, you may or may not require the Archival module that forms a part of Datamaker and ditto for the SOA testing module.

In addition to test data management the company also markets data masking solutions (built-in to test data management), service virtualisation (which integrates with test data management), as well as requirements definition, script-less automation and automated test case generation.

One of the strengths of Grid-Tools solutions is their robustness, and in particular their ability to integrate with existing technologies. In addition to supporting all major database types, files, and mainframe formats, Datamaker offers two-way integration with HP ALM/QC. Agile Designer further integrates with several agile project management and virtualization technologies, as well as test case design, automation, and BPM technologies. These include URequire Studio, Critical Logic TMX, VersionOne, as well as BPMN-compliant tools like Cordys and Nimbus, HP ALM/QC and BPT.

Grid-Tools offers a range of professional services which supplement the company's core product range.

Potential clients can sign up for a free 15 day trial of all of Grid-Tools primary solutions. During this period, they will receive the full support of Grid-Tools' consultants, who will help demonstrate how the solutions can most benefit their development projects.

Once a client has settled on a tool, Grid-Tools aim to help them get the greatest benefit out of it within their organisation. In addition to a full range of consultancy work packages, introductory training courses and workshops for users of all technical ability are offered, and are frequently held in local regions including the UK, USA and India.

With respect to Datamaker in particular Grid-Tools offers strategic advice, training, and support plus free trials of the software, for organizations looking to implement end-to-end test data management. This often involves a period of on-site consulting, advising on technological and procedural improvements to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of software development, while reducing costs.

Grid-Tools offers bespoke consultancy which focus on the key areas of test data management. This includes data management and provisioning, Test Mart and Test Data on Demand packages. Synthetic data generation and data cloning packages are also available. Data security concerns are addressed by masking and subsetting work packages, and a Data Masking Audit is able to assess the effectiveness, cost and consistency of existing practices. A full audit of existing systems is also available, to eliminate "technical debt", while test matching services can be provided to reduce automated test failure.

A two-day Datamaker training course is offered, to guide users from the basics of the tool to more advanced tasks. The course exposes users to how data is organized within Datamaker, providing them with an understanding of its powerful synthetic data creation functions.

Fast Data Masker

Grid-Tools offers two forms of data masking: simple data masking and fast data masking, where the difference is that the former uses generic drivers and the latter uses native drivers as well as native database utilities. The functionality is also richer in GT Fast Data Masker. Both are part of the Datamaker test data management suite but the latter is also marketed as a stand-alone product called GT Fast Data Masker.

GT Fast Data Masker supports all the leading database environments as well as masking for flat files and has an emphasis not just on masking the data and auditing the results (to ensure compliance) but also on the speed of its masking. There are some relevant test results (from a real customer) posted on the company's web site. The product includes facilities to profile the data in advance of masking, to determine what data needs to be masked, as well as a comprehensive range of masking options, including a cross-referencing capability so that you can ensure consistent masking if you are masking multiple systems at the same time.

Grid-Tools is not fussy about who uses Fast Data Masker and has no particular industry focus although it does, to a certain extent, focus on the Healthcare and banking sectors, where it has had some notable success. Both of these sectors are ones that are heavily regulated and where compliance requirements around the protection of personal information are paramount.

More generically, the company's main emphasis is on companies that agree with its data-driven approach and who appreciate that agile development is as much about the data, and particularly the test data, as it is about the development processes themselves. It would argue, and we would agree, that you can't have a truly agile development process without agile test data to go with it.

In addition to its own teams, the company has an extensive network of partners across the globe, with trained staff in over 18 countries worldwide. These are split between regional resellers that serve the needs of local markets, and global strategic partners, which include CA Technologies, Accenture and HP. Partners in the Americas include Orasi Software and Softworx, while Central and South America is served by Green Light Technology. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, partners include ANECON GmbH, Blue Turtle Technologies, Cast Info, INFA Partner, Infuse, Lemontree, Sothis Yazlim, Spica Solutions, WSM, MTP, Soflab Technology, and Software AG.

Grid-Tools has had some significant success in the financial sector though none of its major banking clients can be named. Projects range from establishing a new data warehouse to migrations. Government contracts and healthcare are also notable but again unnamed. The company's website provides a number of case studies though none of the named users will be familiar to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Fast Data Masker comes with multiple seed tables, with internationalised versions of these tables where appropriate (such as names) and you can also add your own seed tables. There is multi-column capability so that, for example, state and zip code will match. It also includes cross-reference management so that you can, say, retain the same transformations across runs or databases. You can also define your own functions and there is support for flat file masking. The product can update data directly within the database but you also have the option of extracting data into a staging area, passing it through a masked view and then building shadow tables. Finally, there is also support for updating of primary keys which can be rebuilt automatically as well as data discovery (profiling), version control and difference management, common column discovery to ensure that the same mask is applied to matched columns, and the ability to incorporate sub-setting within the masking process.

It is worth noting the importance of file-based masking, which is often required in conjunction with database masking. For example, you might have scrambled the social security numbers in the target database. However, your input file could now contain non-matching social security numbers and the load will fail. Using the cross reference table, or the hash routines employed by Grid-Tools as a part of the masking process you can ensure that this mismatch doesn't happen.

Finally, it is important for data governance and compliance reasons that you can prove that you have appropriate processes in place to ensure the integrity of personally identifiable information. Grid-Tools provides workflow capabilities that allow you to define relevant procedures with, for example, checked, validated and approved stages to the identification of which data is to be masked. This lets relevant people look at the data profiling information and confirm that the data has correctly been identified as PII data or not as PII data. This provides a very rigorous audit trail of the due diligence taken by you in order to identify which data needs to be masked.

Databases supported by GT Fast Data Masker include Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Ingres (Actian), Sybase (SAP), My SQL (Oracle) and Informix (IBM) as well as ODBC and flat files. In the case of DB2 support is provided for both DB2/400 and DB2 on the mainframe as well as for distributed systems. Indeed, Grid-Tools is unusual in having a product that runs directly on mainframe systems.

Grid-Tools offers a range of professional services which supplement the company's core product range.

Potential clients can sign up for a free 15 day trial of all of Grid-Tools primary solutions. During this period, they will receive the full support of Grid-Tools' consultants, who will help demonstrate how the solutions can most benefit their development projects.

Once a client has settled on a tool, Grid-Tools aim to help them get the greatest benefit out of it within their organisation. In addition to a full range of consultancy work packages, introductory training courses and workshops for users of all technical ability are offered, and are frequently held in local regions including the UK, USA and India.

In addition to the masking and subsetting work packages, a Data Subset and Data Masking training course equips users with the skills needed to reduce and mask copied data using GT Fast Data Masker and Data Subset. Users of all technical abilities can learn how to generate scripts, and how to build their own masking rules and routines.

Agile Designer

Agile Designer is an end-to-end test case design and requirements definition tool, which allows users to automatically generate test cases, linked to test data, virtual assets and expected results. As a part of this, it can find and make test data, map requirements to active flowcharts, automatically generate automation frameworks, calculate the cost and complexity of requirements, and quickly manage changes.

The problem for testers is testing the right things, just enough. You don't want to over-test or under-test and you want to test the things that are important. Automation can significantly help with these issues.

Historically, automated test case generation has centred around two major approaches: pairwise testing and cause and effect modelling. The former is limited in its applicability, does not lend itself to collaboration with business users, offers no way to tie it back to the requirements of the application under test, and does not include any mechanisms to support real-world constraints. Cause and effect modelling is much more comprehensive and is requirements-driven. However, it is complex and requires special training to use. Grid-Tools' Agile Designer supports both of these methods, plus constraint modelling, but also introduces a third way.

Agile Designer's third way is based on flow chart modelling. While this isn't as perfect as cause and effect modelling at discovering defects it is significantly better at this than pairwise testing or other methods. Conversely, it is much easier to use than either of the other methods and is easy for business users to understand, which is especially important in agile environments.

Agile Designer integrates with Datamaker and there is a Test Data on Demand application that allows users to expose Datamaker functions to testers.

Grid-Tools is not fussy about who uses Agile Designer and has no particular industry focus although it does, to a certain extent, focus on the Healthcare and banking sectors, where it has had some notable success. Both of these sectors are ones that are heavily regulated and where compliance requirements around the protection of personal information are paramount.

More generically, the company's main emphasis is on companies that agree with its data-driven approach and who appreciate that agile development is as much about the data, and particularly the test data, as it is about the development processes themselves. It would argue, and we would agree, that you can't have a truly agile development process without agile test data to go with it.

In addition to its own teams, the company has an extensive network of partners across the globe, with trained staff in over 18 countries worldwide. These are split between regional resellers that serve the needs of local markets, and global strategic partners, which include CA Technologies, Accenture and HP. Partners in the Americas include Orasi Software and Softworx, while Central and South America is served by Green Light Technology. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, partners include ANECON GmbH, Blue Turtle Technologies, Cast Info, INFA Partner, Infuse, Lemontree, Sothis Yazlim, Spica Solutions, WSM, MTP, Soflab Technology, and Software AG.

Grid-Tools has had some significant success in the financial sector though none of its major banking clients can be named. Projects range from establishing a new data warehouse to migrations. Government contracts and healthcare are also notable but again unnamed. The company's website provides a number of case studies though none of the named users will be familiar to the man on the Clapham omnibus.

While offering both pairwise testing and cause and effect modelling as options we will concentrate here on those features of Agile Designer that make it unique, in particular its use of flow charts. To begin with, flow charts are directly linked to requirements. If you already have the latter in place using some third party tools (HP ALM, TIBCO Nimbus, Cordys, Critical Logic TMX or VersionOne) then there are facilities to import and reverse engineer those requirements so that they can be presented as a set of flow charts. One of the effects of this process is that you can easily identify ambiguities in the original requirements.

Flow charts are colour-coded so that you can differentiate visually between possible and impossible (constrained) paths and between those paths that have been tested and which have no defects, those that have been tested and which have defects (which are highlighted), and those that have not been tested yet. You can select a sub-flow and work on that element of the overall requirements set and you can also prioritise. In any case, the software will automatically generate all the relevant test cases within a minimal number of test cases, while coverage metrics can be generated to know how much of a system is being tested. The flow charts are very easy to understand and will help collaboration with business users.

Going beyond test case generation itself Agile Designer provides test case management capabilities. These include the ability to import existing test cases that you may have developed so that these can be analysed in a fully managed environment. This allows you to do things such as identifying duplicate and zombie test cases that are no longer required, as well as enabling reuse.

This is particularly useful when managing changing requirements, as it reduces the need to manually update test cases and scripts. Instead, users can simply add or remove functional logic from the flowchart, and Agile Designer will automatically remove or repair broken, redundant or invalid tests, and will automatically generate any new ones required.

When used in conjunction with Grid-Tools' Datamaker the requisite data for each test case can be derived - this can radically reduce the effort required in identifying and accessing the right data to use for any particular test case - and there is a portal (Test Data on Demand) which enables the sharing of both test cases and test data. In addition to working with Datamaker, Agile Designer also works in conjunction with Grid-Tools' (and third party) service virtualisation offering.

Agile Designer also integrates with a number of technologies that companies may already be using to create test cases and automated test scripts, as well as several project management and test case design tools. In this context, Agile Designer serves as an accelerator to existing technologies, allowing users to optimize existing requirements and test cases, automatically generate automation frameworks, calculate cost and complexity, and manage change.

Grid-Tools offers a range of professional services which supplement the company's core product range.

Potential clients can sign up for a free 15 day trial of all of Grid-Tools primary solutions. During this period, they will receive the full support of Grid-Tools' consultants, who will help demonstrate how the solutions can most benefit their development projects.

Once a client has settled on a tool, Grid-Tools aim to help them get the greatest benefit out of it within their organisation. In addition to a full range of consultancy work packages, introductory training courses and workshops for users of all technical ability are offered, and are frequently held in local regions including the UK, USA and India.

For companies wishing to "shift left" testing, Grid-Tools consultants can work closely with an organisations' business analysts, to remove ambiguity from requirements. They can then assist in using Agile Designer to optimize test case design and improve software development.

A one day Agile Designer basics training course is offered, to help users grasp the basics of visual flows and functionality, as well as more advanced functionality such as the HP ALM/QC integration. An Implementing Agile Designer workshop provides bespoke advice, based on existing test case design practices, on how to improve daily processes, and how test cases are stored and managed.